"But I think this will do you good."

Directly afterward Gertrude came into the room. She looked quite solemn and troubled. Ingmar had been fond of Gertrude even in the old days, when she was full of fun, and provoking. But at that time something within him had always fought against his love. But now Gertrude had pa.s.sed through a trying year of longing and unrest, which had wrought such a wonderful change in her that Ingmar felt an uncontrollable longing to win her. When Gertrude came over to the bed, Ingmar put his hand up to his eyes.

"Don't you want to see me?" she asked.

Ingmar shook his head. He was like a wilful child.

"I only want to say a few words to you," said Gertrude.

"I suppose you've come to tell me that you have joined the h.e.l.lgumists?"

Then Gertrude knelt down beside the bed and lifted his hand from his eyes. "There is something which you don't know, Ingmar," she whispered.

He looked inquiringly at her, but did not speak. Gertrude blushed and hesitated. Finally she said:

"Last year, just as you were leaving us, I had begun to care for you in the right way."

Ingmar coloured to the roots of his hair, and a look of joy came into his eyes; but immediately he became grave and distrustful again.

"I have missed you so, Ingmar!" she murmured.

He smiled doubtingly, but patted her hand a little as thanks for her wanting to be kind to him.

"And you never once came back to see me," she said reproachfully.

"It was as if I no longer existed for you."

"I didn't want to see you again until I was a well-to-do man and could propose to you," said Ingmar, as if this were a self-evident matter.

"But I thought you had forgotten me!" Gertrude's eyes filled up.

"You don't know what a terrible year it has been. h.e.l.lgum has been very kind, and has tried to comfort me. He said my heart would be at rest if I would give it wholly to G.o.d."

Ingmar now looked at her with a newborn hope in his gaze.

"I was so frightened when you came this morning," she confessed, "I felt that I couldn't resist you, and that the old struggle would begin anew."

Ingmar's face was beaming.

"But this evening, when I heard about your having helped the one man whom you hated, I couldn't hold out any longer." Gertrude grew scarlet. "I felt somehow that I had not the strength to do a thing that would part me from you." Then she bowed her head over Ingmar's hand, and kissed it.

And it seemed to Ingmar as if great bells were ringing in a holy day. Within reigned Sabbath peace and stillness, while love, honey sweet, rested upon his lips, filling his whole being with a blissful solace.

BOOK THREE

LOSS OF "L'UNIVERS"

One misty night in the summer of 1880--about two years before the schoolmaster's mission house was built and h.e.l.lgum's return from America--the great French liner _L'Univers_ was steaming across the Atlantic, from New York and bound for Havre.

It was about four o'clock in the morning and all the pa.s.sengers, as well as most of the crew, were asleep in their berths. The big decks were entirely empty of people.

Just then, at the break of day, an old French sailor lay twisting and turning in his hammock, unable to rest. There was quite a sea on, and the ship's timbers creaked incessantly; but it was certainly not this that kept him from falling asleep. He and his mates occupied a large but exceedingly low compartment between decks. It was lighted by a couple of lanterns, so that he could see the gray hammocks, which hung in close rows, slowly swinging to and fro with their slumbering occupants. Now and again a strong gust of wind swept in through one of the hatches, which was so searchingly cold and damp that it brought to his mind's eye a vivid picture of the vast sea around him, rolling its grayish green waves beneath its veil of mists.

"There's nothing like the sea!" thought the old sailor.

As he lay there musing, all at once everything became strangely still around him, he heard neither the churning of the propeller, nor the rattling of the rudder chains, nor the lapping of the waves, nor the whistling of the wind, nor any other sound. It seemed to him that the ship had suddenly gone to the bottom, and that he and his mates would never be shrouded or laid in their coffins, but must remain hanging in their gray hammocks in the depths of the sea till the Day of Judgment.

Before, he had always dreaded the thought that his end might be a watery grave, but now the idea of it was pleasing to him. He was glad it was the moving and transparent water that covered him, and not the heavy, black, suffocating mould of the churchyard. "There's nothing like the sea," he thought again.

Then he fell to thinking of something that made him uneasy. He wondered whether his lying at the bottom of the ocean without having received Extreme Unction would not be bad for his soul; he began to fear that now his soul would never be able to find its way up to Heaven.

At that moment his eye caught a faint glimmer of light coming from the forecastle. He raised himself, and leaned over the side of the hammock to see what it was. Presently he saw two persons coming, each of whom was carrying a lighted candle. He bent still farther forward so as to see who they were. The hammocks were hung so close together and so near to the floor that any one wanting to pa.s.s through the room, without pushing or knocking against those who were sleeping there, would have to crawl on hands and knees. The old seaman wondered who the persons could be that were able to pa.s.s in this crowded place. He soon discovered that they were two diminutive acolytes, in surplice and ca.s.sock, each bearing a lighted candle.

The sailor was not at all surprised. It seemed only natural that such little folk should be able to walk with burning candles under hammocks. "I wonder if there is a priest with them?" he said.

Immediately he heard the tinkling sound of a little bell, and saw some one following them. However, it was no priest, but an old woman who was not much bigger than the boys.

The old woman looked familiar to him. "It must be mother," he thought. "I've never seen any one as tiny as mother, and surely no one but mother could be coming along so softly and quietly without waking people."

He noticed that his mother wore over her black dress a long white linen surplice, edged with a wide border of lace, such as is worn by priests. In her hand she held the large missal with the gold cross which he had seen hundreds of times lying on the altar in the church at home.

The little acolytes now placed their candles at the side of his hammock and knelt down, each swinging a censer. The old sailor caught the sweet odour of burning incense, saw blue clouds ascend, and heard the rhythmical click, click of the censer chains. In the meantime, his mother had opened the big book and was reading the prayers for the dead. Now it seemed good to him to be lying at the bottom of the sea--much better than being in the churchyard. He stretched himself in the hammock, and for a long time he could hear his mother's voice mumbling Latin words. The smoke of the incense curled round him as he listened to the even click, click of the moving censers.

Then it all ceased. The acolytes took up their candles and walked away, followed by his mother, who suddenly closed the book with a bang. He saw all three disappear beneath the gray hammocks.

The instant they had gone the silence was at an end. He heard the breathing of his comrades, the timbers creaked, the wind whistled, and the waves swish-swashed against the ship. Then he knew that he was still among the living, and on top of the sea.

"Jesu Maria! What can be the meaning of the things I have seen this night?" he asked himself.

Ten minutes later _L'Univers_ was struck amidships. It was as if the steamer had been cut in two.

"This was what I expected," thought the old seaman.

During the terrible confusion that ensued while the other sailors, only half awake, rolled out of their hammocks, he carefully dressed himself in his best clothes. He had had a foretaste of death which was sweet and mild, and it seemed to him that the sea had already claimed him as its own.

A little cabin boy lay sleeping in the deckhouse near the dining salon when the collision occurred. Startled by the shock, he sat up in his bunk, half dazed, and wondering what had happened. Just over his head there was a small porthole, through which he peered.

All he could see was fog and some shadowy gray object which had, as it were, sprung from the fog. He seemed to see monstrous gray wings. A mammoth bird must have swooped down on the ship, he thought. The steamer rolled and heeled as the huge monster went at it with claws and beak and flapping wings.

The little cabin boy thought he would die from fright. In a second he was wide awake. Then he discovered that a large sailing vessel had collided with the steamer. He saw great sails and a strange deck, where men in oilskin coats were rushing about in mad terror.

The wind freshened, and the sails became as taut as drums. The masts bulged, while the yards snapped with a succession of reports that sounded like pistol shots. A great three-master, which in the dense fog had sailed straight into _L'Univers_, had somehow got her bowsprit wedged into the side of the liner, and could not free herself. The pa.s.senger steamer listed considerably, but its propellers went right on working, so that now both ships moved along together.

"Lord G.o.d!" exclaimed the cabin boy as he rushed out on deck, "that poor boat has run into us, and now it will surely sink!"

It never occurred to him that the steamer could be imperilled, big and fine as she was. The officers came hurrying up; but when they saw it was only a sailing vessel that had collided with their ship, they felt quite safe, and with the utmost confidence took the necessary steps for getting the boats clear of each other.